I spent the transition from 2023 to 2024 in restless slumber. What began as worry gave way to the wonders of connection. Perhaps it was the stone from a sacred site tucked under my pillow, or perhaps it was something else that seeded it, but there I lay in my bed immersed inside an ever-developing vision around the concept of Connection in a way I had not yet fully embraced. For those of you who know me and have read my words or heard me talk, connection is the foundation of what I believe we are all here to find. It can take different forms. It is individually unique, yet universally binding. It is what we seek, continuously, after we are birthed into a self.
Our connections are the seeds of our being.
So on this first day of the New Year of 2024, I wish to seed the connections of peace, harmony, balance, joy, belonging, unity, understanding, grace, forgiveness and love. May these seeds germinate and form roots that thread through this life we all share.
My recent “Thanksgiving” post resulted in some very insightful comments and discussions, and I appreciate every one of them. As I scrolled through my Facebook feed this morning, I felt a renewed resolve to somehow be a part of a needed shift in how we honor this day. I do not wish to begrudge a holiday spent with loved ones sharing gratitude and food, but I continue to be troubled by how easy it has become for us to trade comfort for truth.
When I later looked through my Instagram feed, I was reminded of the impact this holiday has on indigenous communities. There was a universal call for not only acknowledgement, but also some type of action. Some organizations I follow suggested education by learning the history of the land where we reside and the indigenous communities that called it home before we did. As I did some of my own research on the land I know call home, along with the modern-day struggles and concerns of its indigenous inhabitants, I was reminded about how much I have yet to learn.
It was a good place to start. From here, I took into consideration another suggestion I had found on the posts I had read: to give back monetarily. Once again, I realized how much I have neglected my “home.” In the past, I have often looked beyond the state where I reside to place my donations, choosing more global causes and organizations to help offset my environmental footprint, and to help offset the effects of poverty and disaster.
Here in New Hampshire, there are several local groups and causes that seek to unite and educate. There are many ways to give back to indigenous communities and initiatives. It you are also looking for ways to give back to indigenous communities that resided upon the land before you did, please consider learning about who they were and choosing a group or cause to make a donation at this time of year (or any for that matter). It’s one way we can offset some of the harmful effects of our origin stories and ensure that we are working towards a more just and equitable future.
What does it mean to celebrate a holiday of giving thanks for a freedom acquired through colonialism and genocide? When I sit with my origin story, it does not feel comfortable.
For indigenous communities, America’s Thanksgiving is a day of mourning.
I am not indigenous to this land renamed America. The shelves of my childhood classrooms were filled with my white-washed history that lauded Christopher Columbus and the hardships endured by the pilgrims. In music class, we sang America’s patriotic songs, which proclaimed this beautiful land as rightfully ours. The mascot of my high school was “The Red Raider” until just a few months ago. Never did we speak of those who were displaced, murdered, and robbed of their land. Never did we talk about the true origin story of acquired land.
Ignorance should never be an excuse for comfort and complacecy.
My ancestral origins are spread across the European continent. Although I may not be directly responsible for the colonizing this land, it is my origin story. If I am going to take a seat at a Thanksgiving table it should not feel comfortable.
A photo of me at Cavan Burren Park in Ireland taken on the day after my waking vision. My husband sent it to our children labeled “Mom in her glory.”
We have all heard the adage, “Home is where the heart is,” but have you ever explored what coming home means to you?
I believe this adage is true, but in a very simplified form. We do find our sense of home through the heart. Home, I believe, is a feeling of deep connection. It is, in essence, what we are all seeking when we feel lost or alone.
The mysteries teach us that we are birthed into individuality to experience the self. A self that came from and will eventually return to a greater whole. At our very essence, we are all seeking this reconnection to unity, but “home” can feel different to each of us.
Let me give you and example:
I recently traveled with my husband to Ireland. It was a belated 50th birthday trip for me, so I chose most of our destinations. If you know me, you won’t be surprised to hear I filled our agenda with as many ancient sites as I could.
During the night of our first stay in Ireland, I woke to a vision of a figure standing over the bed on my husband’s side. Later in the day, I told my husband of the vision, which seemed more than a mere coincidence based upon the site we had chosen to visit later that day.
“I’m not sure it was for me,” he told me, “I don’t feel like I’ve had a past life here. I don’t feel a connection to this place.”
I’ve added a little more dialogue to his words to better illustrate this idea of home. My husband has learned, while observing me over the years, one of the most profound ways I find “home” is through visiting ancient sites. Here, I often find the energy of home. I can feel the energy of connection so deeply, sometimes, it moves me to tears. My heart pulls towards reunion. My cells come alive with memories the stretch beyond the individual self. I feel truly, and utterly, “at home.”
But this is not necessarily true for my husband.
Home to him is a more concrete and here-and-now experience. He is “at home” with his present day family. He is “at home” when he practices his craft of medicine.
I too find home in my craft of writing. Words form a labyrinth of connection that weaves through my cells when they arise from a place deeper than the self. When that soft voice bubbles through the layers of resistance, I feel the energy of home. I feel connection.
This feeling of home also comes to me when I am still in nature, and the individual self dissolves into the harmony of being a part of Earth.
So, I am wondering, what does home feel like to you? Where, or how, do you find your deepest sense of belonging and connection?
Even if you don’t want to share your feelings of home with me, maybe you will share it with yourself? I think it’s worth exploring. I think the feeling of disconnection from “home” is, at its most fundamental level, what causes our pain and suffering.
I have realized (for quite some time) that I have been at an impasse with my writing endeavors. I can see the end vision in full color and in vivid detail, but I find myself stumbling and stopping (often) in the process to get there. I’d like to feel as though each step takes me closer to this vision, but sometimes I am not even sure where to take even a tiny step.
Sometimes as writers we hold our words too close to our heart, afraid of rejection and being misunderstood. Sometimes we’re even afraid of success.
Even though our books may be born of our own imaginations and hard work, we write them to be read and heard. I have been thinking a lot about the “heard” book, or the audio book, for some time. I have ethical issues with the standard print choices for indie writers, and this includes the environmental impact. Lots of excuses hold me back from production and distribution. I want to make money for my work, but at what cost?
Which brings me circling back to why I write, and in particular why I am writing this middle grade series I’ve called Warriors of Light. In essence, I want to spark belonging in those who read or hear my written words. I want my audience to find a sense of home in this labyrinthian adventure I have created.
So, I have been thinking about ways to read my book with minimal cost investments. I’d love to hear your ideas…
The woman who cuts my hair suggested I read chapters on YouTube, and perhaps combine the audio with tranquil images. It’s something I have also thought of, so it’s got me wondering…Ideally I’d love to have moving graphics related to the chapters, and present them as “bedtime” stories for kids, teens, and adults. Really, for anyone old enough to find a home inside the words.
But, I also realize that my vision is often grander than my means. How to take those small steps and still feel like the product is good enough?
Has anyone thought about doing something similar with their writing, or have thoughts about how to offer “free” readings of their books and make them widely accessible?
As life moves me towards the age of fifty, I find myself reflecting on how I define joy. We often ask each other, “Did you enjoy this?” and “Are you enjoying that?” without perhaps thinking about what these questions mean to us individually.
Merriam-Webster goes on to define joy in three ways. There is an outward expression of joy that arises out of “good-fortune or success,” and there is that more inward state of being that is equated to “bliss.” In the middle is “happiness.”
I have found that as I reach into the arms of life at fifty, none of these definitions of joy quite work for me. Instead, see the moments of life that open me.
Let me try to explain.
A few nights ago, I had a dream: I was sitting with a new teacher, and we were reviewing my life resume. “Well,” she said, “you didn’t finish your PhD, but you wrote this book, and then this book, and then this book…”
You might think, after reading this, that I am about to define the joy I have discovered in my life by the definition of “good-fortune or success,” but I am not.
If I did, I would count reviews and book sales and find lack. I would turn towards an outward refection of success and find how unsettling this constant climb really is.
No, joy has found me in more subtle, but meaningful ways. For me, fifty years of joy have given me moments like this:
I am seven months pregnant, dancing in the living room with my child in my belly. Just the two of us. Complete union. Joy.
I am sitting on the sofa, looking into my teenager’s eyes filled with the sorrow of heartache. It is the middle of the day, but it is also morning. It is also night. The days turn into weeks, and we are brought together, again and again to experience this part of life. Distilled moments of union, communing in raw openness. Also joy.
I am standing in the moors of England, my hand pressed against an ancient stone. The wind fights my hair and tears run with sorrow down my cheeks, but I am hardly aware of myself. Instead, I am experiencing life beyond me. Memories of lives in all their extremes move through me in waves of connection, slipping through time and space. It is happiness, and sorrow, and everything in between. The joy of openness, which is connection.
I am sitting at an old, antique desk I found years ago with my husband on Craig’s List in our hunt to build my dream. It is at the end of a small alcove, my office. The walls around me are a soft purple hung with gifts of friendship and love. I am writing words to fill the pages of my fourth book. In this moment, I don’t care about how many eyes will read them, I am filled with the harmony of the flow of life that ebbs and rushes.I am an active part of creation in a sacred space. Joy.
I am standing still in the forest with my beloved dog beside me while nature moves around us. I can hear the song of birds and the wind moving through the trees. I can feel the light that is outside of me, inside of me. I am still, but I am moving. I am the energy that is my life as a part of all life. A temporary form, constantly changing as it sheds and grows. Releases and renews. Life recycling and living, over and over again. Unity without ending: the joy of being. The light of life = delight.
Someone I care deeply about has recently died. She was a friend, a mentor, a mother figure and a kindred spirit all wrapped into one human form. Her loss was not sudden, but too soon. I am grieving in uncharted territory while reading a blog post she wrote before her passing. Her presence is alive within her words, and I watch as the light on my screen fades and dims, then brightens again, seemingly of its own accord. She is the “light behind the story.”The light that never fades, which is the pure joy of life.
I am sitting inside a home infused with love in all its forms. The walls hold the laughter of joy and the shrieks of sorrow, and everything in between. Outside, nature breathes through the windows a constant promise of renewal. I sit amidst life, writing, but also participating. I am the witness and the participant. I am a part of all that is and ever will be. I am the joy ofbeing.
It is one of those increasingly rare days here in New Hampshire when one feels like normal has returned. At least for a moment. The edge of anxiety has lifted with the smoke filled air and the apocalyptic haze has gone elsewhere. It is a summer day of yesterdays. Instead of fire, I can smell the clothes drying on the line. Above me, the blue sky has broken free, and the air quality index has registered as “good.” For now, the angry red sun has calmed.
It is a good day to breathe. A good day to be outside in the shade and marvel at the life that persists and even thrives. Here in New England we have received record breaking rains. It is a good summer for mushrooms and mosquitos, but not for sensitive lungs. Torrential rains cycle through several times a week, flooding the banks of rivers and washing away roads. Entire cities have been submerged, becoming islands to the helpless and hapless. Landslides have taken down hills that have never experienced instability.
Even though it is a “good” day to breathe and to allow the increasingly steady state of anxiety to abate, just a little, I am acutely aware that it is no longer a normal day. I can recall, maybe a mere decade ago, thinking how lucky we are, here in the Northeastern part of the continental U.S., that the effects of climate change have been subtle. And, dare I say, even gentle.
How much has changed.
I am in the midst of a summer of rain and thunder. Of smoke and haze from nearly 900 fires burning in the land north of where I live. A land that is supposed to be colder. On Monday, as the sky broke open in more angry torrents of rain, I stood beside the open window and smelled fire instead of water. The impossible has become possible. The threat, now a reality.
No longer are we in the phase of forewarning, we are living in the landscape of dystopia. A landscape of our creation. Do not try to preach to me about climate denial. I will not hear it. Wake up to your senses. Breathe in the unease around you. Feel the deadly rise of Fahrenheit and smell the smoke of a raging Earth.
I was having a tough day. A really tough day. It was one of those days when the weight of life compounds into the crushing feeling of overwhelm. Aside from my pets, I was alone, and I didn’t want to be alone. I needed support. I needed to feel seen and heard. And, it turns out, most of all, I needed a hug.
I didn’t know how much I needed a hug until my friend Becca came through the door after responding to my text message asking if she was available for a walk. I told her I was having a tough day, and as good friends do, she read between the lines. She got into her car and came over. She walked through the door, navigated around the eager dogs, and pulled me into an embrace. We never went on that walk, instead we sat on my porch and she held presence for me in the way I needed her to, and for as long as I needed her. And, before she left, she pulled me into another hug.
I have a complicated history with hugs, some of which I have written about before. But it took those hugs, and the hugs that followed after from my children and husband, that made me realize how vital loving embrace is.
For some of us who have known conditional, abusive, and complicated love, in all its myriad forms, the right type of hug is not always easy to come by or receive. The wrong kind of hugs can feel like we are being violated instead of nurtured, and no hugs at all can make us feel unwanted. We are complicated beings with our own complicated sets of histories and emotions, and the seemingly simple act of hugging can be filled with nuances that are not easily defined or understood. It’s taken me almost fifty years on this planet to realize how vital the right type of hug is for my wellbeing, as well has how necessary it is for me to let others know this.
I spent a lot of time yesterday and last night thinking about my past and my relationships that have involved hugging in all its myriad forms. I thought about what I had never felt in my mother’s hugs, and how long it has been since she has embraced me. I thought of the violating feel of my stepfather’s hugs, and how when I had reunited with my birthfather as an adult I had finally felt the father hug I had been longing for. And I thought about all the hugs, those love-filled hugs, that I had experienced and was missing. I thought of Sue and Rachel, who both gave the best mother-love hugs one could ask for, and what a loss it has been in my life to have had them pass, less than two weeks apart, two years go. I thought of my grandmother’s loving touch, and the hugs of my dear friend Carol who has lived too far away for over a decade. And I thought of type of hugs I was missing from my adolescent children and my husband, and how much the complicated language of hugs had infiltrated our family life.
I’m still thinking about hugs, and how much I believe the right type of hugs can change a life, and maybe even the world. This simple act that is not simple at all. I have since spoken to my husband and children about hugs and told them how much I am missing theirs. I have opened myself into asking, and in the process am realizing how important that asking is, sometimes, to the act of receiving. And, although I have received my required doses of hugs in this moment, I know I will need more. And so will the people in my life.
We have a painted chalkboard on our kitchen wall where we post the day’s events, and this morning I moved the schedule around a bit to make space for something I believe to be even more important. I created a space for the request for an embrace by chalking the words, “Who needs a hug?” Underneath, I wrote the word “Mom.”
I hope that I, in turn, can be available for anyone who needs the right kind of hug in their life, in their moment of need. And, I hope if I don’t know they need that hug, they will ask me for it.
Have you ever thought about what it might be like to meet the writers behind the blogs you read? What would you talk about over, let’s say, a cup of tea? This thought occurred to me while I was reading through this morning’s blog posts that come through my email feed. I happened to be pursuing a post by Jaye Marie and found myself thinking about how lovely it would be to sit with her over a cup of tea and talk about bonsai. I’ve never tried growing a bonsai, but I find the idea fascinating. Bonsais fill me with wonder. They make me think of magic and fairies. Of creating an almost impossible beauty inside a troubled world.
And from there I got to thinking about how much I enjoy the words and shared blogging lives from the writers I follow. When I open their posts, it’s like opening a personal letter from a friend. Some of these friends I have been lucky to meet. And some of those encounters have literally transformed my life. Like meeting the late Sue Vincent.
Most of the writers, though, I merely know through our blog and the comments we share at the end of our posts. But, this doesn’t make their presence in my life any less meaningful. After musing about having tea with Jaye and talking about the art of bonsai, I got to thinking about what else I would enjoy talking about with my fellow bloggers.
Dawn Minot’s post this morning about living life as an introvert struck a familiar cord in me. I found myself thinking about what it might be like to sit beside Dawn on that rock by the water and talk about Life with a capital “L.”
As I progressed through my emails, Anita’s post about Nova Scotia caught my eye. Anita, who travels the world and captures the beauty of place in her photographs and words. Yes, I decided, I would quite like to sit with Anita some day and talk about travel and the magic of place.
And then I found a post by another person I have had the pleasure of meeting. When I opened it, Steve’s lovely photos framed a lovely poem. The post, a reminder of another blogging friend I have talked with over tea. One of the subjects being the art of photography.
Soon, I began to consider myself rather lucky to have these “letters” to open every morning. I think perhaps, I’ll continue to reflect, and share, from time-to-time, as I open up my posts, on what it might be like to have tea with the person who wrote the words.
We are, here in the USA, residing in the aftermath of another horrific mass shooting at a school. It has become a normalized discomfort. A discomfort that does not have to exist, but yet, here we are, again.
I’m not going to blog about the need for gun control and legislation, because it’s a fact that we keep repeating without doing anything about. I keep voting and signing petitions, I keep practicing and teaching yoga. I keep trying to do my part to change what feels like the unchangeable. But, it’s never enough. There is always more to be done. The simple and obvious start is to enact those laws we refuse to enact as a nation. I do not hold a position of public office, I’m merely a voter, but I’m also a citizen who engages with and creates entertainment in the form of books (which, one day, I’d love to see recreated on screen).
Last night, I wrapped up my engagement with the Blood & Bones series on Netflix by watching the final two episodes. And, just as I did after seeing the series You through to its latest episode, I found myself wondering why I had allowed myself to endure it. I am a sucker for seeing things through. I rarely put a book aside, no matter how much it pains me to finish it, and I often do the same with films. But, I’m done with You and I’m done with Blood & Bones. Why? Because even though the writing and creative execution is, at times, beautiful and even brilliant, I have decided not to torture myself any longer waiting for the good to prevail over the bad. And, let’s be clear, there’s a whole lot of bad in both of these series.
We wonder why we are obsessed with violence in this country, but we cannot seem to break the cycle. Rarely do we see fantasy series created without an over-abundance of violence and we keep churning out thrillers filled with murder and horror that push the edges of extreme in the name of entertainment.
When will we decide we’ve had enough? When will we decide that maybe, just maybe, we benefit more by spreading the good we are capable of, over the bad?
After waking up at 2am this morning from dreams laced with the violence from the last two episodes of Blood and Bones, I renewed my vow to do my part as a creative to spread the good over the bad. Violence is not a prerequisite for fantasy, nor is it for drama. We do not need blood and gore to keep the page turning, or the viewers locked to a screen. We need a good story. And, dare I say, a story about good. Conflict need not turn to violence, and when it does, it behooves us to ask why? Why are we writing it? Why are we reading it? Why are we watching it?
I know when I engage with it on the screen or in a book, I am always waiting for the bad to turn back to the good. But, as we see in the series mentioned above, it never stays good for long these days. We have normalized violence, and we can’t be too surprised that we are seeing it normalized in our schools. If we want change, we must be the change.
And so, I’ve decided to put aside those two series and focus on creative that brings me hope and joy, which is also how I engage with writing. If it doesn’t educate me through historic violence, I see little need for engagement. I know through personal experience with writing fantasy and adventure books, that violence need not dominate the prose. It need not be a means to keep the viewer locked to a page or a screen with a rush of destructive adrenaline. Why torture ourselves with the bad when we always have the choice to bring forth the good?
The Light Behind the Story 